Alarmed by the surge in mpox cases, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has taken the unprecedented step of declaring the outbreak sweeping through African countries a continental public health emergency. The World Health Organization (WHO) is also meeting to decide whether to trigger its highest global alert level over the epidemic.
These moves come after a virulent strain of the disease spread rapidly to 16 countries and six new countries were affected in 10 days.
There have been 15,132 mpox confirmed cases in Africa since the beginning of 2024. Some of the countries affected are Burundi, Cameroon, Congo, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, Uganda and Kenya.
